BARBASSONE'S INN—THE DUEL

In the little Barbassone inn, on the road that goes down from Moiariella di Capodimonte to Ponte Rossi, there were no customers that clear winter morning. It was really an outhouse on pillars, roughly built, and on the ground-floor there was a big, smoky kitchen with a wide, grimy fireplace and a large hall, where rustic tables were set out for eating and drinking. On the upper floor, which was reached by a queer outside staircase, the host and his wife slept in the room over the kitchen. The other bare room, used as a storeroom, was full of black sausages and stinking cheese, strings of garlic hung on the walls, and bunches of onions and winter marrows strung on osier withes. Below, in front of the inn, were two or three arbours, that must have been covered thick with leaves in spring and summer, but now they were bare, showing the wooden framework. Under the arbours were dusty, broken tables covered with dry, rustling leaves; and at the side of the inn was a bowling-green, surrounded by a low myrtle hedge. The host had had a wooden stair made inside, leading from the ground-floor to the upper rooms; and a door at the back opened on to the fields. From the first-floor windows could be seen the suburbs of Naples, Reclusorio Road, the railway-station, the swamps outside the town, and the Campo Santo Hill. Two roads went up to the inn; one came from Moiariella, the other from Ponte Rossi. There was the way from the fields also, but it did not count.

However, if the neighbourhood of the country inn was deserted, some company were certainly expected, for the servant in the kitchen that fine quiet morning was giving hard blows to some pork chops on a big table. On the stove a kettle was boiling for a macaroni. Before the inn door the host, a sagacious-looking peasant, was washing fennel and salad in a bowl on the ground, throwing away the bad leaves to the thin fowls that were clucking about. The hostess of the Barbassone was away; her husband often sent her out when it suited him, to buy fresh fish, tripe, or whatever could not be got at Capodimonte market. He stayed at home with the old servant, who was busy in the kitchen helping him; and there was a son of his, about twelve years old, who waited on the customers. This boy was now employed in the kitchen grating down some white nipping Cotrone cheese, that looks like chalk and burns the throat, but Naples throats do not object to it.

It was a soft, quiet time near noon. The host often looked to see if anyone was coming from the low road of Ponte Rossi, or if anyone was coming down Moiariella road, but Barbassone's keen face was as serene as the December morning. He bent down again to soak the lettuce-leaves in the already earthy water of the basin, when, without his having seen her, a black figure of a woman rose before him. She was a girl a little over twenty, but so worn with fatigue, want and sorrow she looked years older, and her great black eyes burned in her lean face. She was Carmela, the cigar-girl, Annarella and Filomena's unhappy sister, Raffaele or Farfariello's despised love. She had come on foot, so naturally made no noise. A thinly-veiled excitement was mingled in her face with the weariness after her long walk. She was dressed like a vagrant in a cotton frock quite washed out, with a rag of a red shawl round her neck and a rumpled cotton apron at her waist.

'Good-day, gossip,' she said, greeting the host with Naples common folk's favourite title.

'Good-morning, lass,' he answered, looking at her suspiciously.

'Can I have a glass of wine?' she asked, keeping down a tremble in her voice.

'Are you alone?'

'What about it? Am I not able to pay for a glass?'

'You may drink the whole cellar,' the host said in a tone of affected carelessness, and he stood aside to let her into the room, following her to a table.

She sat down on a rough chair, after glancing round quickly. There were no customers.

'Is it Gragnano wine you want?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Half a pint of Gragnano wine!' shouted the host towards the kitchen, cleaning the table with his apron.

'Do you wish anything to eat?' he then added, still staring at the girl.

'I am not hungry; I am thirsty,' said Carmela, casting down her eyes. 'Give me a penny-worth of dry chestnuts.'

The host slowly went to get those white, shrivelled, hard chestnuts that provoke thirst. In the meanwhile the boy brought a caraffe of greenish glass full of dark wine, stoppered by the usual vine-leaf. Carmela began to munch the chestnuts slowly, drinking a mouthful of wine at times.

'Will you do me the pleasure?' she said to the host, who was hovering about rather uneasily.

'Thank you, I will,' he said.

He never refused, and, as there was only one glass, he took a long pull at the bottle, making the wine gurgle, then drying his lips.

'How quiet you are out here!' said the girl, trying to start a conversation. 'Have you customers always?'

'Not always. It is according to the weather.'

'People from Naples come, do they not?'

'Yes, I have them sometimes.'

'Here are two francs. Buy a cap for your boy,' she said, seeing the host was suspicious.

He took the money unhesitatingly and pocketed it, then stood to be questioned.

'A set of young fellows are to come here at mid-day, are they not?'

'Yes, I expect some.'

'One Farfariello is to be with them, I believe?'

'Yes, I heard that.'

She gave a deep sigh.

'Is he your brother?' the inn-keeper asked.

'He is my lover.'

'There are no women with them,' the host remarked carelessly.

'I know that,' she said, shaking her head. 'But not only they are coming. Don't you expect others?'

'Another set of men may be coming.'

'What to do?' she cried out, feeling her fears justified.

'To get dinner, of course.'

'Is there nothing else?'

'Nothing. At Barbassone's it is the only thing to do.'

'On your honour, is that all?'

'I give you my word. While they are in my house nothing can happen.'

'Yes, but what about afterwards?'

'I have nothing to do with that. When they have gone three yards away, I have no more to do with them, do you see.'

She said no more, and got quite thoughtful. A wine-stain was on the table, and she lengthened it with her finger, making a pattern with the wine.

'Gossip, will you do me a kindness?'

'Don't speak like that.'

'A real charity, gossip, that God will give you back on that handsome son of yours. Let me be present at this dinner in some room aloft—any hole where I can see without being seen.'

'My dear, Barbassone never meddles with doubtful affairs.'

'If you love your son, do not say no to me. It is not a plot, I swear it by the Virgin! It is an idea, a fancy of mine. I want to see what my lover is doing.'

'Yes, to make a scene—a quarrel.'

'I will not move, sir; I swear it by my eyes! I just want to look on at this dinner—nothing more.'

'Do you promise not to come out of the room?'

'I swear I will not.'

'Nor try to speak to anyone?'

'No, no, I won't.'

'If you are found out, do not say that I put you there.'

'Of course not.'

'Come with me,' he said sharply.

She started after the host, who left the hall and went up the outside stair to the second-floor. Carmela gave a glance from the parapet up the two roads that lead from Naples to Barbassone's inn, but they were quiet and deserted. Not the slightest noise of a carriage or footsteps came up in that noontide silence. The inn-keeper took Carmela across the room where he and his wife slept, and opened the door of the smaller one alongside where the inn provisions were kept. A whiff of rancid lard and ripe cheese caught Carmela by the throat and made her cough.

'You will be all right here, my dear,' Barbassone said to her, leading her to a window that looked to the front of the inn. 'If these honest fellows come, they will dine down there in the arbour. You will see their every movement. Only you must promise you will stay behind the window-glass.'

'Yes, sir, I will,' Carmela promised.

'You are not to go down, whatever happens. Do you understand? I don't want to get into a scrape with my customers.'

'Yes, sir; I will not go down, never fear,' she said in a low tone, half shutting her eyes, as if she saw a frightful sight before her.

'If not, I will shut you in.'

'There is no need of that. As I love the blessed Virgin, I won't move.'

'Good-bye in the meanwhile,' said he, going away.

'God will reward you,' the girl called out after him.

The long waiting began, and to the love-lorn maiden these minutes had the weight of lead. Still, she stood motionless behind the dull, dirty window, and her warm breath dulled the panes more. There were a couple of bottomless chairs and a wooden stool in the room, but she did not think of sitting down. She was too anxious to mount guard at the window, looking at the two sunny roads that mild winter's day, examining the peaceful landscape, where city noises were silent. Only twice she went backwards and forwards in that room full of black sausages and brown cheese, choked by their bad smell, and she saw there was another window that looked to the back of the inn, over the fields going up to Capodimonte. It was perfectly silent on that side too.

As time passed, a sharp anguish caught her heart. Perhaps the man who had told her of Farfariello's and his friend's trip to Barbassone's inn had cheated her, or she might have misunderstood what he meant. Farfariello, his friends, and the others, perhaps at that time were already in some other place, and all might be happening far off, without her being able to stop it. Perhaps it had happened already. She often turned her eyes to heaven, praying that it should not be so. At one time, not managing to keep down her uneasiness, she pulled her rosary from her pocket and began to say Ave Marias and Pater Nosters mechanically, thinking of something else. Seeing a dreadful vision, that made her despairing heart go out to the Virgin, for her to save Raffaele from misfortune 'and in the hour of our death,' she caught herself saying aloud once. It was just then a noise of wheels and a cracking of whips came from Capodimonte Road, and Raffaele and three other youths, almost the same age, appeared in a cab.

'Oh, Our Lady of Sorrows!' sobbed out Carmela from behind the window.

Raffaele paid for the cab, and, contrary to the usual habit in these country trips, that the driver always shares the pleasures of the day, this time the horse turned round and went back the way it came. The young fellows, with trousers tight at the knee and caps hanging by one hair, were now making a great uproar in the lower room, perhaps because dinner was not ready. The boy quickly spread the cloth on one of the tables which ought to have been shaded by the leaves of the arbour, but it was bare. In the meanwhile, quite calmly, these youths set to playing bowls, waiting till the macaroni was ready. Raffaele especially went about quietly, with that low-class ease that charmed Carmela's heart.

'May you be blessed!' she whispered, rather reassured by that calmness.

Now, seated at four sides of the table, pulling macaroni into their plates from a big dish in the middle, Raffaele and his friends ate straight on with youthful appetites, improved by the wintry country air. They drank a lot, and often lifted their glasses of bluish dark wine, and, looking fixedly at each other, said something and drank it off at a gulp, without winking. Carmela, though she heard no voices, understood that they were drinking healths, or to the success of something.

Up till then, everything had gone on like a commonplace joyous winter trip, on a fine sunny day in a quiet country place: the inn, the host in the doorway, the boy serving the table, and the four fellow-guests, looked perfectly easy, in sympathy with the quietness around. But again there was a noise of wheels from Ponte Rossi Road, and an ostentatious whip-cracking. Raffaele and his friends looked up, as if out of mere curiosity, while Carmela, cut to the heart by that sound, felt her legs giving way, and she prayed the Lord silently to give her the strength not to die just then.

It was a party like the first one—of four young fellows with light trousers, tight at the knees, and neat black jackets, wearing their caps over one ear. Carmela recognised the one that led the party—Ferdinando, called the l'Ammartenato Teaser. He said something to the driver on paying him; the man listened, bending down, then went off slowly the road he had come, without turning his head. The two parties looked straight at each other solemnly, and bowed very punctiliously. Raffaele and his friends went on eating quietly; the other four took off their hats and hung them on the bare boughs. Macaroni was much quicker served for them, perhaps because the host had got ready enough for the two parties, so that at one time, as Raffaele's friends were eating slower and Ferdinando's were hurrying their mouthfuls, they got to the same stage, then went on together to the next course, swallowing, in two gulps, pork chops and lettuce salad, and drinking glasses of wine one after another as if they were water. While they were drinking, the two tables glanced at each other now and then quite indifferently. In spite of the quantity of wine swallowed they seemed to keep very cool; some of them lay back in their chairs occasionally in a calm way. Still, all that calm and free-and-easiness was the same at each table, curiously alike, as if the two sets had made a tacit agreement; but it fell short of the gaiety natural to Neapolitans on an outing, when laughter, shouts, and songs rise to heaven. Sometimes the youths round Raffaele, nicknamed Farfariello, bent towards him, and he smiled proudly; it was the only sign of cheerfulness in the company. Ferdinando—Ammartenato as his nickname was—did not smile even; his set tossed glasses of wine down their throats always, not moving a muscle. Carmela looked on from above; her lover's smiles, the wine drunk off by the two sets, and their peaceful free-and-easiness, did not reassure her. Amongst other things, she saw the movement of the lips, but did not hear the words. It seemed to her that a deep silence was between these people, who understood each other by signs; it was a doleful silence, in the midst of country peace. A slow, ever-increasing anguish oppressed her breathing, as if her heart had contracted and only beat at intervals; her whole will was in abeyance. She stood, leaning with her forehead against the dusty window, rigid, her sad eyes fixed on Raffaele's face, as if she wanted to read what was passing through his mind. Now the inn-keeper and his boy brought the fruit—that is to say, dried chestnuts and a bundle of celery with white stalks and long, thin green leaves—and with it more wine. Then, all of a sudden, after his father had whispered something in his ear, the little boy took off his apron, put on his cap, and started off running up the Ponte Rossi Road. As it was getting near the end of the meal, Carmela felt her brain giving way; she had one single desire growing in her mind to go down, take Raffaele by the arm, and carry him off with her, afar, where neither cammorristi nor guappi could reach. She dared not. For a month before that Raffaele had been cold and hard to her, avoiding her persistently, so that she got to places he had been at always ten minutes after he had left. He had let her know, too, that it was no use; in any case, he would have nothing to do with her.

'He might at least tell me why, and I would go away satisfied,' she cried out, weeping, to those who had repeated Raffaele's words.

But she had not seen him for a month; in fact, if she knew that two sets of Hooligans were going that day to a mysterious appointment at the Barbassone inn at Ponte Rossi, it was from an indiscretion of a chum of Raffaele's. He had said it, looking her straight in the eyes, with a secret meaning she could not help guessing, so that she left him at once, and on foot, from her low-lying quarter, she had dragged herself up there, panting, sorrowful, biting her lips, not to cry out nor weep.

She dared not go down; she felt Raffaele would abuse her and chase her away rudely, as he had always done lately. She shook at his angry voice and contemptuous words. Now the dinner was coming to an end very quietly; the two sets were smoking cigars, gazing into vacancy with the solemn satisfaction of people who have dined well and are getting ready to digest. For a time the peace that rose from the surroundings was such, and the youths were all so quiet, that for a moment Carmela felt her anguish soothed, and she hoped it was a tragic dream. Only for a moment, to fall deeper again into a sorrowful abyss, where the moments passed with dramatic slowness.

Ferdinando's party rose. The four young fellows, with the usual cheap swell gestures, pulled up their trousers, tightening the straps, dragged down their jackets, and set their caps haughtily across their heads. They went away, passing beside Raffaele's table solemnly; then they all touched their hats, and the others answered, saying the same word. Carmela could not bear what; it was 'Greeting.' They went away; she gave a sigh of relief. But instead of returning by Ponte Rossi, whence they came, and where perhaps the carriage was waiting for them, Carmela saw them go round the house, and one by one. She had run to the window that looked on to the inn-keeper's garden and the fields, and saw them disappear behind a green screen of trees. Panting, she ran again to the other window, that looked on to the inn-yard, where Raffaele's party were getting ready to go off also. All was safe if they took the Capodimonte Road, whence they had come. It would only mean that there had been two dinners, with no after-thought nor consequences. The preparations had been somewhat slow, but at a signal from Raffaele all hurried, while he, with a spent cigar in a corner of his mouth, paid the reckoning quietly. He got up, stretching his arm for his cap, which was hanging from a bough; in doing it his waistcoat pulled up, and Carmela saw something shining at his trousers belt. It was a revolver. Yet for a last moment she still hoped. Perhaps they were going away peacefully by the quiet country roads to the noisy town; and, at any rate, Raffaele always carried a revolver, a small-sized one. But in a moment the horrid fact she dreaded looked to her like a certainty. Very quietly Raffaele and the other three youths turned, not by Capodimonte Road, but behind the inn, through the garden, following the same road as the other set, and making up to them—that is to say, walking quietly with their springy step one after the other. She could bear it no longer; she felt something give way within. She ran to the storeroom door; the man had locked her in, evidently, for it would not open. She, wild, blind with grief and rage, began to shake the door, which was old and worm-eaten, so that it offered little resistance. The bolt the host had drawn broke with the rattling, and she very nearly fell on the landing from the shock. She went down the outside stair at a bound, but on the last steps she found the host, his shrivelled peasant's face very pale, for he had heard all the noise. He stood in her way.

'Where are you going?'

'Let me pass—let go!'

'Where are you going? Are you mad?'

'Let me go, I say!'

He caught hold of her wrists and looked her in the eyes.

'Are you the woman they are going to kill each other for?'

'Holy Virgin, help me! Let me go!'

'Do you want to get killed?'

'Yes, yes! Let go of my wrists!'

'Do you want them to kill you?'

'It doesn't matter if they do,' she cried, slipping from his grasp with a powerful wrench.

Running, panting, sobbing, her hair loose, clapping on the nape of her neck, her dress beating against her legs and throwing her down, then getting up again, crying, filling that serene country silence with her despair, she ran after the two sets of men by the same road, turning behind the same hill with green trees. She found herself in a narrow country road, and instinctively followed it, feeling it was the right one. She went on and on very swiftly, bursting with sobs, her ears alert, questioning the silence. But on the right a harsh, sharp sound made her jump; just after it came another shot, then another. She rushed into the field where the two files of low-class duellists were going on firing at each other at a short range. Throwing herself on Raffaele, she shrieked wildly.

'Go away!' he said, trying to free himself.

'No, I will not!' she shrieked.

'Go away!'

'I will not.'

'It is not for you; go away!'

'That doesn't matter.'

All this took place in a minute; the shots went on echoing dolefully in the country air. In an interval she slipped down on the ground, her arms spread out, with a bullet in her temple. Carmela's fall was the signal for flight, especially as, the virginal stillness of the country air having been broken by the many revolver-shots, people from Capodimonte village were heard arriving by Ponte Rossi Road. Hurriedly the two sets went off across the fields by a marked path, and quickly disappeared. On the duelling-ground only Carmela was left lying on the grass, blood flowing from her temple. Beside her, Raffaele, looking pale, tried to stanch the wound with a wet handkerchief. But the blood went on spouting like a fountain, making a red pool round the girl's head. She opened her eyes feebly.

'Tell me who it was for.'

'Don't think about that. Think of your own health,' he said in an agitated way, looking around.

'People are coming now; make your escape,' she said, thinking only of his safety.

'Can I leave you like this?'

'It does not matter; someone will help me. Fly, or you will be arrested.'

'Adieu,' he said, feeling relieved. 'We will see each other again at Pellegrini Hospital; I will come and ask for you.'

'Yes, yes,' she whispered, shutting her eyes and opening them again. 'Fly! Adieu.'

He rushed off, too, very quickly, without looking back; she followed him with her glance, half sitting up, holding the handkerchief to her forehead, while the blood flowed down her neck and shoulders into her lap. She was alone. She was holding her head down in her great weakness, when some peasants, a magistrate from Capodimonte with some police, and a gardener from the Royal Palace grounds came up at the same moment. They had to put her into a chair that the Barbassone inn-keeper had brought out, and carry her. They went slowly, the same road as she had come. She lay with her legs swinging against the chair, her arms limp, her head going hither and thither, and at every shake of the chair spilling big drops of blood on the ground. Before the inn, where the two tables with wine-stained cloths still stood, the chair was put down.

'Would you like anything?' asked the magistrate, a swarthy man.

'Only a little water to drink,' she said, opening her eyes slowly, as if her eyelids were too heavy.

Meanwhile they put a cold-water bandage on the wound till a cab could be got to take her to Pellegrini Hospital.

'How do you feel?' asked the magistrate. He wanted to go on with the inquiry, as he saw that her strength was failing.

'I feel better; it is nothing.'

'Who was it did this to you?'

'Nobody,' she said quietly.

'Who did this to you? Tell me! I will find out, at any rate,' the magistrate insisted.

'No one touched me' Carmela muttered.

'It was a duel, was it not? How many were there?' the magistrate asked loudly, his heart hardened by now.

'I don't know.'

'How many were there?'

'I know nothing about it.'

'Take care, or afterwards I will have you put in prison.'

'It doesn't matter,' she said, shutting her eyes.

'It was for you, was it, that these shots were fired? Was it for your sake?'

'No, no, it was not,' she said, her face suddenly growing sorrowful.

'Who was it for, then?'

'I don't know; I know nothing,' she added decisively, as if she was not going to answer any more.

The magistrate shrugged his shoulders in a rage. But another inquirer was coming along Ponte Rossi Road—a woman dressed in green cloth, embroidered in pink, and a pomegranate bodice, her shiny black hair dressed high, and cheeks covered with rouge. It was Filomena, Carmela's unfortunate sister.

She came up panting, her face discomposed, her hair not kept up by the silver comb, the patent-leather shoes quite dusty, holding a handkerchief at her mouth to keep back her sobs. When she saw the crowd evidently round a wounded person, she rushed into the group; crying out wildly, and pushing people aside, she fell on her knees by her sister, showing the self-forgetfulness of a frightful sorrow, and groaned out:

'Carmela dear, how did this happen?'

The other opened her eyes—her face showed a sorrowful amazement; she tried to caress Filomena's black hair with her weak hands, but her livid fingers trembled.

'How did it happen?' Filomena exclaimed, sobbing noisily, while warm tears ran down her cheeks and washed off the rouge.

'It happened just like that,' said Carmela, and nothing more.

'Carmela, who had the audacity to do this to you? Who was the assassin? Bring him to me,' cried Filomena.

'Try and find out the truth,' the magistrate whispered in the woman's ear. He made a sign to the others to stand aside for a little and leave the sisters alone. Now they had bound the girl's head up roughly, and under the bandages her face seemed tinier, more worn, as if rubbed down smaller by the hand.

'My sweet sister, my sweet sister!' Filomena went on saying, still kneeling before Carmela.

'Don't cry—why do you cry?' said the wounded girl, in a curious, solemn, deep voice.

'Tell me who did it!' Filomena said her. 'It was for Raffaele, was it not? Was there a fight? I knew it—I knew it; but I did not get here in time. Holy Virgin, why did you not let me get here in time? I have to see my sister like this because of not getting here in time.'

A livid look had come over the wounded girl's face on hearing this; her eyes had got wide open. With a violent effort she raised her head a little, and said to Filomena, staring at her:

'Tell me the truth.'

'What do you wish, sweetheart?'

'I want you to tell me—but think of the state I am in, think of that first.... I want you to tell me all.'

Then the other, fallen into deeper affliction, shook all over and held her tongue.

'They have had a duel,' Carmela brought out with difficulty, keeping her eyes on her sister. 'There were eight of them; Raffaele was there, and Ferdinando the Ammartenato—they were fighting for a woman.'

'Holy Virgin!' Filomena said, going on weeping with her face in her hands.

'Who was the woman?' asked the wounded girl, putting her hand on her sister's head, and almost obliging her to raise it. Filomena only looked at her, her eyes filled with tears.

'It was you—it was you,' the wounded girl said in a cavernous voice.

The bad woman threw herself back, raised her arms heavenward, and cried:

'I am a murderer—I am the cause of your death!'

Carmela's face got clay colour; in a whisper, stammering, as if she could not use her tongue, she too said:

'Murderer! murderer!'

'You are right—you are right, Carmela: I am a wretch!' Filomena cried, stretching out her arms. A moment after, the blood soaked the bandage round the wounded girl's head, and blood began to drop from her nose. The magistrate, who had run up, frowned, and signed to the cabman, who had come forward to take the girl to Pellegrini Hospital, to stop.

'Forgive me, dear,' Filomena wept out, cast down at the foot of the chair. But Carmela no longer heard her. Blood flowed from her mouth and trickled down from her nose, falling on her breast; the earthy pallor of the face spread to the neck; her half-open eyes showed the whites only; her hands, lying on her knees, pulled at her wretched, dull dress, as if searching, with that motion that gives a frightful impression of terror and sorrow. All of a sudden she opened her mouth—her breath was failing her.

'Carmela darling!' Filomena cried out, understanding, getting up on her knees, panting. But from her mouth, black already, a loud, long cry came out, as profound as if it came from her tortured vitals, sorrowful as if all the complaints of a life-long agony were in it—a cry so loud and doleful it seemed to shake everything around—men and things—and make the neighbourhood lose colour. Carmela's light hand was still vaguely searching for something, and ended by finding Filomena's head, where it rested, grew cold and stiffened. The dead woman's face was quite cold, but it was tranquil now. Silently bent forward under the forgiving hand, the survivor sat there, and the country around was silent also.